Chapter 4
4
T he sound of my phone ringing wakes me up, and it takes me a moment to remember what happened last night. Amelia is still in my arms, breathing deeply beside me, with her hair covering her face. I reach over to the nightstand and silence the phone, not wanting to disturb this moment.
Amelia looks sweet when she's awake, but when she sleeps, there's nothing but peace on her face. It would be a crime to disturb her right now. Amelia trusts me. Of course, she doesn't know who I really am or what it is I do everyday. She doesn't know who I work for.
The moment she finds out, there's no doubt in my mind she'll run as far as she possibly can. Any sane woman would. But maybe, just maybe, I can keep this from her and the two of us can be together. I've never wanted to be with a woman as badly as I do right now.
This is a brand-new feeling for me. I’ve fought my entire life for the things I have now, and lying right beside me is another thing I know I'll have to fight for.
The phone rings again, and I grab it to silence it. This time, looking at the screen, I see that it's my boss, Dimitri. It's unusual for him to call me so early, so I know it has to be important. Dimitri has always preferred to sleep late and handle business in the evening. What intrigues me the most is that it's only been four days since my last hit. I almost never have them so close together. Dimitri knows I need time to cool down to make sure nobody is on to me after a kill.
I silence the call and reluctantly wiggle out of Amelia's grasp and tiptoe out of the bedroom. When I'm in her small bathroom, I close the door and answer the phone.
“Why did you not answer?” Dimitri immediately asks, anger apparent in his voice.
“I was occupied. What do you want?” My voice is short and I know this is going to come back to bite me.
“I have a job for you. The details are with Leonidas. Go to him today.” It's a minor annoyance that he can't just tell me over the phone, but I understand why he's cryptic like this. Working in the industry we do, we have to protect our secrets as best as we can. Adding a few extra steps in the process is a minuscule inconvenience not to get caught for your crimes. “And Alexei, I need this done as soon as possible.”
I don't have a chance to say anything else before he hangs up. I don't know if Amelia is awake in bed or not, but regardless I try to cover my tracks by flushing the toilet and washing my hands. When I walk across the narrow hall to the bedroom, she’s stretching in the bed, her eyes half open, and she stares at me with a smile.
“Hey,” she groggily whispers. She pulls the blanket higher on herself, shaking off the early morning chill in the room. I know she's not wearing a damn thing under those covers, and I immediately move to join her to help keep her warm. “I was starting to think you left.”
“I wouldn't dream of it,” I reply, kissing her forehead and brushing a few stray strands of hair out of her face to get a clear view of it. As much as I try to push the memory of the call out of my mind, I can't. I need to know what I have on my schedule before I can do anything else. “What do you say the two of us go get some breakfast? I know a great diner around here.”
She smiles, tracing her fingers over the peaks and valleys of the muscles on my chest, before kissing my chin. “That sounds amazing. I think the two of us were a little preoccupied last night, and I'm starved now.”
“Yeah? You definitely worked up an appetite,” I laugh as I watch her slide out of the bed and walk across the room stark naked. I lean back against her headboard, watching her grab some clothes from her dresser and make her way to the bathroom. I would give anything to shirk off all of my responsibilities and stay with her all day long, passionately making love to her.
My cock stiffens thinking about shoving her on the mattress and taking her breasts in my mouth, hearing her moan underneath of me once again. I have to force the thought of my phone call with my boss into my mind to calm down a bit and put my clothes back on.
When I get to the diner, all I have to do is get information from Leonidas. After that, I can spend the rest of the day with Amelia.
She comes back in the room in a pair of loose fitting blue jeans and an oversized band T-shirt that she ties behind her back to be more form-fitting. There's almost nothing of her flesh exposed, yet this is the sexiest she's ever looked at me. It's casual and comfortable, but there's something adorable about how she wears it.
“You ready?” I ask, moving over to her and giving her a kiss on the lips. I intended it to be quick, but I can't help but linger and enjoy the taste of the toothpaste still in her mouth.
We reluctantly separate from one another and I grab all of my belongings before heading out to the car with her. She laughs as I open the door and close in for her, still entertained by the chivalry.
“I thought you said the diner was nearby?” Amelia asks, her voice still light and amused, when she realizes it's been about twenty minutes and we're still not there.
We've already passed dozens of restaurants we could have stopped in for a Saturday morning breakfast. I'm sure all of them have their own delicious breakfast specials, but none of them have what I need.
“I must have miscalculated how far away you live,” I say, shrugging it off casually.
We make small talk for the rest of the drive, talking about places in the area we've been and we make tentative plans to go to some new restaurants that opened downtown at some point together. Even though I like the idea of making plans for the future with Amelia, my mind is preoccupied.
I've been working for Dimitri most of my life. He found me when I was nothing but a starving kid in St. Petersburg desperately trying to scavenge food scraps for me and Marcus. He took advantage of that desperation and molded me into the man I am now. While I am paid well and my job comes with certain amenities, it's dangerous.
I've never had anything to be protective over until now. If I ever want a future with Amelia, I can't continue this way. Am I supposed to come home covered in blood and hide it from her? What am I supposed to say when I come home? She asks me how my day was.
I'll need a way out of this before I can even entertain the idea of going on another date with her. But right now, while she's still here with me and doesn't know who I really am, I want to savor the idea of a future with us.
We pull into the Uptown Diner, where Leonidas is the owner and manager, and Amelia hops out of the car before I have a chance to open the door for her. She looks at me with an eyebrow raised as if she had decided it was a competition on her own. I laugh and grab her hand as we walk inside together.
We take a seat in a booth, and I immediately scan the room for any sign of Leonidas. There are plenty of familiar faces—people who I know work for Leonidas and Dimitri and people I run into from time to time. While the Russian mob owns this diner, it still gets plenty of patrons who don't know a damn thing about what really goes on here.
“What do you recommend here?” Amelia asks me after a server comes to the table and hands us menus.
Truthfully, I've never actually eaten here. Normally, I walk in and head right back to Leonidas's office and get the envelope Dimitri leaves behind. “The French toast is incredible,” I lie, assuming Leonidas knows how to handle something as simple as French toast. “I have to run to the restroom. When the server returns, would you mind ordering that for me?”
Amelia nods and smiles at me while she studies the menu, none the wiser to the real reason I'm leaving. I take advantage of her distraction and head toward the back office. I open the door to his office without knocking, and he looks up, his small wire-framed glasses tilted on his nose, almost looking like they’re miniature in contrast to the rest of his burly body.
“Long time no see,” Leonidas says ironically, rifling through some papers on his desk to hand me an envelope. There are usually a few weeks between our visits, so this is unusual.
“I don't understand why he's not using another asset for this instead of me.” I open the envelope and pull out a piece of paper folded neatly inside. Boris Von Erich, the brother of my last hit. Dimitri wants him killed tonight when he returns home from a trip to Amsterdam.
I sigh and nod my head at Leonidas before making my way back out to Amelia. I stuff the envelope in the waistband of my pants so she doesn't see it before sitting down at the booth with her. The menus are gone, so I assume she's ordered.
“I got the French toast too,” Amelia says, folding her arms in front of her with a warm smile on her face. The stress of reading what I just did on the envelope vanishes when I see her, and I smile back. “Okay, I think it's your turn to tell me a little bit about yourself.”
I pause, thinking about what I should say to her. My eyes instinctually scan the room, looking for any signs of danger around me. I want to be attentive in the conversation, but it's a force of habit that keeps me withdrawn slightly.
“I guess there's not really much to tell. I work in finance and live in Greenwood Village just outside of town,” I lie, shrugging. “I'm honestly a pretty boring guy.”
“Oh, I don't believe that for a second,” Amelia says, reaching a hand across the table to grab mine. “What do you do for fun?”
I think of the answer for a second, contemplating giving some of the standard boring options. Before I can say anything, my eyes catch on a familiar face sitting at the counter. Oliver Friedman, a complete rat who has been known to work with detectives in the area. He used to handle small jobs for Dimitri before we realized he was selling information.
I wanted to kill him, dump him in some river, and let him sink to the bottom for the rest of eternity. Dimitri thought that would look a little too suspicious, so we let him live. He's just blacklisted from ever doing business with anyone like us ever again. That's certainly had a negative impact on his quality of life, considering he has no source of income now.
My stomach turns when I see him walking toward Amelia and me. What the hell could this rat possibly want?
Amelia notices me staring at him, and she looks over her shoulder. “Friend of yours?”
“It is,” I lie once again. I stand and meet Oliver halfway before he can spoil my morning with Amelia.
“Alexei, it's been a long time,” Oliver says, clapping a hand on my shoulder like we're old friends and he hasn't betrayed me and everyone I know countless times. “I've been meaning to give you a call. How's our buddy Dimitri doing?”
I glare at him, glad that Amelia can't see the angry look on my face. “Why don't you and I have this conversation somewhere else?” I can't risk Amelia overhearing a word of it. Oliver looks over my shoulder at her, and a smirk grows on his lips.
“Afraid someone might not approve?”
I grab him by the arm and practically drag him outside before he can say anything else. What I have with Amelia is too good for some fuckup like him to ruin. I take him to the alley between the diner and some tax accounting business and shove him against the brick wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shout at him, clenching my fists tight while I try to calm myself down. As much as I want to beat him to a pulp, I can't go back into the diner with skin broken on my fists and blood staining my clothes.
“I just wanted to talk,” Oliver shouts back at me, standing with his spine straight even though he's nothing more than a scrawny twig I could snap in half in an instant. “I need you to tell Dimitri to give me some work.”
“And why the hell would I do that? Last time you did a job for him, you double-crossed us and everyone you work with,” I say, shaking my head and laughing incredulously.
“Because I just saw you walking with that pretty little thing, and you and I both know a lot of dangerous people.” Oliver smiles at me, showing off his yellowing teeth. My stomach turns, and my vision clouds with anger.
Is he seriously threatening Amelia right now? He's blackmailing me to get him back in Dimitri's good graces.
This man is more of an idiot than I ever thought possible.
I don't think before I act, but my fists crashing into the bones of his skull are a relief. The anger grows in my body, and I can't control myself. One punch turns into seven, and Oliver is on the ground, trying desperately to block every blow I send his way. He's bleeding, and that only encourages me to continue.
“You piece of shit!” I shout at him, angry that he had the nerve to come here today but even angrier that he would threaten Amelia.
He's begging me to stop, and before I land another blow on him, I do. I look down at the pitiful man below me, a sick feeling in my stomach. I don't like being angry. I don't like attacking people, but I do it anyway. That's all I know.
“If you ever come here again, I will kill you without hesitation. Do you understand?”
He nods his head at me, and I let go of him, standing up and looking down at the mess I left behind. I need to go back inside before Amelia notices I've been gone too long.
Unfortunately for me, when I look toward the end of the alley, ready to head back inside, I see Amelia there, watching with wide eyes in horror as I stand above Oliver’s broken body.
This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.